Kash Patel was preparing to leave work for the weekend on Friday, April 10, when he struggled to log into an internal FBI computer system and quickly became convinced he had been locked out. He panicked, called aides and allies to say he had been fired by the White House, and set off a scramble that left the FBI and members of Congress asking who was in charge.
Nine people familiar with his outreach described the episode, and two of them said it amounted to a freak-out. Patel had not been fired. Two people familiar with the matter said the access problem appears to have been a technical error, and that it was quickly resolved. Still, the confusion was real enough that the White House fielded calls from the bureau and from lawmakers seeking confirmation about who was running the FBI, an agency with roughly 38,000 employees.
The episode landed just days after Attorney General Pam Bondi was ousted on April 2 and after The Atlantic reported earlier this month that Patel was among officials expected to be fired after Bondi’s removal. In that telling, Friday’s episode was not just a computer glitch but a window into the instability around one of the federal government’s most sensitive jobs.
Multiple current officials and former officials who have stayed close to Patel said he is deeply concerned that his job is in jeopardy, while witnesses described bouts of excessive drinking. The Atlantic said the incident fit a broader pattern during his tenure, portraying Patel as erratic, suspicious of others and prone to jumping to conclusions before he had enough evidence. It also said senior members of the Trump administration were already discussing who might replace him. An unknown FBI official summed up the episode more bluntly: “It was all ultimately bullshit.”
The FBI responded with a statement attributed to Patel that said, “Print it, all false, I’ll see you in court—bring your checkbook.” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said under Donald Trump and Patel, “crime across the country has plummeted to the lowest level in more than 100 years and many high profile criminals have been put behind bars. Director Patel remains a critical player on the Administration’s law and order team.” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Patel had “accomplished more in 14 months than the previous administration did in four years” and dismissed the reporting as “anonymously sourced hit pieces.”
The answer to the question raised by Friday’s scramble is simple: Patel was not fired. But the fact that a login problem could trigger calls to the White House, to the bureau and to Congress shows how shaky confidence has become around the FBI director — and how quickly the next real crisis could look a lot less like a technical error.
